The Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) announced today that ‘A Mask for Every Utahn’ has discontinued online ordering of individual mask requests because it reached the total allotment of masks available for the initiative.
‘A Mask for Every Utahn’ was a public-private partnership providing a free face mask to Utahns who didn’t have one. Masks, along with physical distancing, play important roles to help stop the spread of COVID-19 and keep Utahns safe.
The state of Utah, through an arrangement with the Utah Manufacturers Association, Cotopaxi, and HM Cole purchased 2.3 million face masks to help protect the health of Utahns during the global COVID-19 pandemic. The state’s order for masks helped to save more than 300 jobs by keeping Utah manufacturers open.
“We want to thank the Utah Manufacturers Association, Cotopaxi, HM Cole, Utah State Mail, and all others involved with this project,” said Ben Hart, GOED’s deputy director and the state worker responsible for the initiative. “Through this project, we were able to distribute over a million free masks to Utahns. We could not have done this without the work and volunteer efforts of all who were involved. We hope Utahn’s benefited from this project as we do what we can to help try and slow the spread of COVID-19.”
‘A Mask for Every Utahn’ project fulfilled nearly 1.24 million masks requests, from almost 280,000 household orders. The program also provided masks to all K-12 school kids, teachers, and faculty in the state, which amounted to approximately 750,000 masks. The program also sent 140,000 masks to grocery stores, particularly those in underserved areas and those who have had more COVID-19 cases.
The rest of the mask requests, and those that the program is working to procure, will go to underserved and vulnerable populations throughout the state. The state will be working with community organizations, nonprofits, and county health officials to distribute the remaining masks. Requests will be vetted to ensure there is no redundancy in distribution. So far, the program has distributed 117,000 masks to targeted nonprofits and other groups serving homeless, veterans, elderly, immigrant and minority populations, and other at-risk communities.